"I don’t want you to conclude that it’s just a matter of aesthetics. Yes, Webster’s [1913] definitions are prettier. But they are also better. In fact they’re so much better that to use another dictionary is to keep yourself forever at arm’s length from the actual language.Recall that the New Oxford, for the word 'fustian,' … Continue reading You’re Probably Using the Wrong Dictionary
Tag: reading
Cultural Good Ol’ Days
"I know people don’t read books like they used to, and they don’t think like they used to, but I struggle to care. Most of this talk is pure nostalgia, a kind of mostly knee-jerk, mostly uncritical (although not thoughtless) response to entirely rational fears about technological opacity and complexity (this nostalgia, of course, was … Continue reading Cultural Good Ol’ Days
